I'm a fan of Richard Montanari, I find his books have the right amount of plotline and gruesomeness to appeal to my warped sense; though whilst I did like Shutter Man, I didn't totally love it.
The problem, and I'll get this out of the way first, so as not to weigh over the whole review; it was just a bit confusing. Maybe confusing isn't the right word, but I really had to work at it to keep up - it was a little disjointed which meant that, whilst it was interesting, it was also hard to keep up with who was who and when it was. That's it. If you can get past that, and you can I'm sure (if you don't have 3 children vying for your time too), it's a good read.
I enjoy reading the enduring relationship between Byrne and Balzano, and I always like the way the characters bounce off one another. Though the working dynamics have changed with Balzano now Assistant District Attorny, it's still easy to read the closeness between the two characters, so even if you hadn't come across them before you could still quite easily engage with them as a new reader.
The Farren family are the right side of insanity to be quite terrifying, especially the lengths they go to in their attempt to be the most destructive influence in Devil's Pocket. Obviously it was Billy who we are presented with the clearest picture of, the others tended to meld into one huge mess of nastiness and criminality. Am I allowed to say I felt a bit sorry for Billy though? I did. Maybe I'm just weird, but he felt a little like a pawn at times being played by those around him.
I was never quite sure who the next victim was going to be, and certainly I had no idea of the reasoning behind Billy's murders until the end of the novel. The depiction of the murders themselves were actually a little tame I thought, compared to other Montanari offerings, though this of course isn't necessarily a bad thing! They did verge on quietly disturbing, in particular the Rousseau slaying right at the start which set the scene for the rest of the book.
I'm pleased things were explained properly at the end of the story, and we were given a real reason as to why events unfolded as they did. It does all tie together nicely, so I wasn't left wondering why something had happened, or someone was killed which I did appreciate. The whole idea of prosopagnosia was an interesting one to get my head around, even though, like I said earlier it did make me feel a certain amount of sympathy for a serial killer!
Shutter Man is a good read, even better if you concentrate I'm sure.
